From: tony
To: Daniel Gould
Date: Saturday, November 30, 2002 12:06 PM
Subject: dream
A friend and I are accidentally given access to an upper office of a
government building on the square of my home town. We go up there and
look around, and I discover a small cardboard box with spiral notebooks
in it. The notebooks are full of handwritten accounts of paranormal
experiences, and most of them are marked "Eyes Only". Eventually I
find a section marked "Top Secret." In a scrawl I can barely read, and
that sometimes looks like German, it says, "Chapter 1: Freaking Out."
I realize that this is something I absolutely have to have a copy of,
so I grab the noteboook of top secret freaking out stories and run,
with a black woman I just met, to the copy store. On the way, I meet
the guitarist from Poison, who asks me to jam with him at a giant
outdoor party where a soccer game is in progress. I accompany him a
little bit on a song that he called "Delmas," and then realize that I
had forgotten to go to the copy store. I also notice that since I had
stolen the book, everything had started to get really weird.
As I run to the copy store, I notice that all the women I pass are
wearing either bikinis or nothing, and they all look really horny, and
they're looking at me with googly-eyes. I ignore this because I'm in a
hurry. At the copy store, I explain very carefully what needs to
happen with the notebook. Don't take it apart. Don't alter it in any
way. Just copy it the way it stands. And hurry!
The old guy at the counter takes the book apart, uncoiling its spiral
binding, and starts to feed the book through the automatic document
feeder. I notice that the book held lots of receipts and cancelled
checks. While the copier is operating, the old guy goes up some stairs
and gets in bed. I can't believe it. The girls in line behind me wink
and wiggle their asses, sometimes breaking into impromptu lesbian sex.
Eventually the book is done going through the copier, and I grab it the
way it is, all uncoiled and jumbled up, and I run upstairs, where the
old guy is on the top bunk of a bunkbed, totally covered by a large
comforter. "Hey!" I say, "Wake up! You're the only one who knows how
to put this back together!" He writhes and mumbles, but refuses to get
up. I realize I'm out of time, so I run back to the government
building to return the book
On the way, hundreds of women are lying around the square like basking
seals. They proposition me as I pass, but I am too focused on my goal.
As I am approaching the building, I see the Director of Government
Services, a woman, coming down the sidewalk toward me. She looks
grave. As she passes, she says, "What a mystery, eh?" I realize she
knows about the theft, but doesn't know it was me. I can't stand it
any longer. "Well, maybe not so much of a mystery," I say, and she
turns around to look at me. I feel in my pocket for the book, which
has turned into a key, and she realizes that I am the thief. "Oh my
God," she says.
"Yes," I say, "but I want to show you something first. I take the key
out of my pocket, and notice that it has turned into a magnifying
glass. I began to tell her about something I remembered doing, but
which I had no memory of:
"I was standing just over there, in front of that shop. I started
messing around with the magnifying glass. At first, I thought maybe I
could focus the sunlight onto the side of the shop, and burn the paint
off, but it wasn't very good for that. So I stood back further, and
let the beam widen out. I noticed that if I got the angle just right,
and stood far enough away, the magnifying glass would project images,
like a movie projector that ran on sunlight. Somehow I got the feeling
that the images were being produced by the sun itself. On the front of
the shop, which was in shadow due to an awning, images began to form.
The first was of Jupiter. Then Saturn, big, with beautiful rings.
Then people, mainly government leaders: Mao Tse Tung, Goebbels, Stalin,
Winston Churchill."
The sun knew everything about us. Our story was encoded in light
itself. She began to cry softly, with happiness.